Verónica N. Vázquez

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Verónica N. Vázquez: I took the bar and three days after, Maria came. The island got destroyed. We were without power, without anything. My father actually hated attorneys. I grew up listening. I hate attorneys. I hate attorneys every year, every month. I actually am a black belt in Taekwondo.

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice” presented by the Trial Lawyers Journal at CloudLex, the next-gen legal cloud platform built exclusively for personal injury law. Get inspired by the nation’s top trial lawyers and share in the stories that shape our pursuit of justice. Follow the podcast and join our community at triallawyersjournal.com. Now here’s your host, editor of TLJ and VP of marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

Chad Sands: Welcome back friends to “Celebrating Justice.” Today we’re joined by trial lawyer Veronica Vázquez. After taking the bar three days before Hurricane Maria arrived, Veronica started her career as a solo attorney in her small hometown in Puerto Rico, but for the past five years has been dedicated to keeping public water systems safe and leading major PFAS litigation across multiple states. To get to the stories, I asked her.

Why did you want to become a trial lawyer?

Verónica N. Vázquez: I had to do a very long reflection on how I became a trial lawyer. And it actually begins since I was very young. I always felt a very deep connection with justice.

That is a word that I use as a grown-up. I didn’t know that word when I was little, but I always was seeking to have Justin in my classroom. I grew up with a lot of cousins, so you can imagine the fights and making arguments to my grandmother. It was his fault. It wasn’t my fault. He stole the food. You didn’t saw him. I was always the one speaking up and fighting with words, and we fought in reality. So I will say that since kindergarten or first grade, my family already knew I would end up an attorney. Although my father was in denial for years and wanted me to pursue a career in medicine, my father actually hated attorneys. I grew up listening. I hate attorneys. I hate attorneys every year, every month, every time. And I developed this sense that attorneys were bad. So it was a profession I wouldn’t imagine to enter because of that. So like I said, since I was very young, I was standing up for me, was standing up for all others, always speaking up. I was the defensor of my cousin, my girl cousin. We were in the same classroom and she was always being bullied. I remember one time we were in a class and the principal came asking for her and another boy and I was just beside her and I asked her, what happened? She told me, this guy had a fight with me and he’s blaming me and I told her no worries I’m gonna help you and I raised my hand without knowing anything that happened and I told the principal I know what happened I want to go because I want to tell what happened so it was like a very big hole and I was walking on the back of the principal I was whispering to my cousin what happened and what did he do and when was this and what do you do what do you tell her I got into the principal’s office and I made this huge story and the kid actually got suspended because they said, well, you were hitting her. You cannot do that. This is a story if you come to a family meeting, you’re going to be hearing the day that Veronica ended up without knowing anything and defended the cousin and that kid got suspended for him.

Chad Sands: That was like your first trial in a lot of ways, right? In your first class.

Verónica N. Vázquez: I reflect on that, the big hole, getting into the office, down, having the interview. I think that was the first time I went to trial. It was in first grade.

Chad Sands: Justice and fairness was the catalyst maybe for you wanting to become a lawyer, but your dad had other opinions about attorneys at the time. How did you kind of push through and make it into law school and what were your early years as an attorney like?

Verónica N. Vázquez: My father, like I said, he hated attorneys. He hated attorneys because his life experience led him to. My brother, my half brother, he asked for his custody when he was like two or three years old. And it was a very painful and long process for him as a male asking for custody of a child. That’s why he developed this hatred for attorneys. But it was actually my father, the same person who led me to be an attorney.

Chad Sands: He ultimately came around and was the one who encouraged you.

Verónica N. Vázquez: That’s correct. Yes. When I got into law school at the time I had three year old daughter and the first week I was in law school I got the news I was pregnant again the first week but after being there and taking a couple of classes I called him and I thank him because this is my passion. This is what I love. I’m good at this. I feel good that I’m helping people and I actually love this. This is my call.

Chad Sands: Three years as an attorney in Puerto Rico, tell me about that after you kind of graduated and what it was like landing your first job.

Verónica N. Vázquez: I’m going to go a little bit back. Like I said, I went to law school with two kids, taking night classes. It was a very crazy time because I was studying until 3 a.m., 4 a.m., while breastfeeding with all of my cases, doing summaries, studying for midterms. It was a very, very hard time. But despite that, being disciplined and overcoming all of the obstacles that life’s put you and just keep going, keep going, keep going. No matter what. I had a very good presence in law school. was chief editor of the critical legal studies journal. I remember taking my kids to all the meetings, to the conference I made. I was able to do it all. When I graduated, I graduated the year that Hurricane Maria came to Puerto Rico. 2017, I took the bar and three days after, Hurricane Maria came. The island got destroyed. We were without power.

Chad Sands: What year was that?

Verónica N. Vázquez: 2017. Without anything, without signal, no television, no cell phones. We disappeared for three, four months. And I didn’t pass the bar that time. It was like 12 points because a hurricane came before. It was the month before the bar. I was with the kids, no school, no power. It was very hard. I studied for the bar in March of 2018. And I put into my mind like, I need to do this in a month. And I studied like a crazy person again. When I took the bar, was top 10 of the bar in Puerto Rico after just that one month and all of those challenges. It was a very hard time. So when I graduated and I passed the bar, I opened my solo practice and I opened an office in my hometown and I began getting clients and then I created my own webpage. I just went through YouTube for hours and hours and I created my own webpage and how to do Google Analytics and advertising and it worked. And I got a bunch of clients and I began working with family law. So I was working very difficult cases. I was always seeking justice, but it’s a very delicate human part of the career. Working with the problems inside families, with kids, it’s very hard. It’s a very hard thing to do. And after one year, I wanted to interview with Annapoli Law. I entered here as an attorney.

And I always love environmental justice. I actually wrote and published articles about environmental justice in Puerto Rico. It’s something that we don’t study too much in Puerto Rico. It’s not in the radar of Puerto Rican. It’s different. But I was very interested in the topics. So I went to this law firm. I have been here for six years now, and it has been a great experience. It has opened my eyes.

It’s a very fulfilling career and it’s something that I just love doing environmental law.

Chad Sands: Was it like kind of having the feelings of graduating law school and you were in between these two hurricanes, but you had this opportunity to take the bar? Did you feel confident after you took the bar, like you were going to pass?

Verónica N. Vázquez: I did, I’m not a crier, but after I learned I didn’t pass the bar, I cried for a whole day. After that, I told myself this was the product of a circumstance I had at the moment. It doesn’t have to do with my talent or my intelligence. I have a very, very good support system. Us Hispanic people, we’re very close with grandmothers and grandpas and your uncles and everyone in the family was like, you need to do it. And I had all that support.

But I knew inside me, this is the product of those circumstances. And I got like 100 points more after retaking the bar. I just did what I had to do, study, be disciplined, hard work, and I did it.

Chad Sands: And then you opened your own law firm, but you focused and got business and family law. And it wasn’t necessarily the kind of justice you were seeking to bring, but you did get the opportunity then to go join Napoli Shulnick.

Verónica N. Vázquez: That’s correct. When I joined Napoli, it’s a type of trial, that’s different from what you do in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico courts are very small. You can compare them like rural courts in the United States, when everyone knows everyone and it’s a little bit difficult to navigate between all those friendships. It’s not so big. But when I got into Napoli, I saw how much a trial lawyer can do. I began to study and that has been a very important thing. Me, after hours, always doing research. So I need to do, because I represent people from all of the US. I know the law in Puerto Rico, I know the law of many other states, but at that time I needed to step up and learn something new that I didn’t learn law school. After I clocked out, I got into my home and I started reading about the district courts, about environmental law, about the big cases, about the liability theories. And on top of that, you have to have very scientific mind to work these type of cases. They involve toxic torts and chemicals and how they enter into the body and they cause diseases and you need to do all that while you’re a trial lawyer. After hours, I sat down, I study everything and that actually gave me many, many opportunities in the law firm.

Chad Sands: After making it through law school with two kids and starting your own firm and family law and then moving over into environmental litigation. I don’t know how competitive is in Puerto Rico in terms of how many attorneys are down there fighting for clients, but how do you kind of separate yourself or what makes you unique as a trial?

Verónica N. Vázquez: What truly set me apart is my humanistic approach. Even if I’m representing a city, a municipality, everything is work and guided by humans. I have this talent, I understand people, I can read people very well, and that has helped me a lot. I will say life experiences have gone through everything in my life, and that has helped me to understand better my clients from personal injury, from different backgrounds, if they are low income, medium income, high income, a city, a municipality, it doesn’t matter. It’s something that I probably gonna understand because there’s so many life experiences that I had. And my dedication to the community, I have done a lot of pro bono. I actually represent steel pro bono, public water systems in Puerto Rico. And that’s what I do in the United States. I represent public water systems. So I have a compromise to my community. And that’s talking about pro bono, a form of pro-boto. I’m always helping. Every once in a while someone comes to me, I need to divorce, I need to do this. And I’m always doing after our work to help people. I will say also that one of the things that helped me build character is that my father always wanted me to be able to stand for myself. So since I was very young, I started doing martial arts. I actually am a black belt in Taekwondo.

I was a champion, regional champion in sparring and forms. That has taught me so many things, for example, discipline, hard work, trusting your abilities, trusting your body, but it also helped me learn how to lose. There’s a big chance that someone smarter, stronger is going to come and it’s going to be better than you.

Chad Sands: And you got into Taekwondo because of your dad? Yes.

Verónica N. Vázquez: I started at seven years until 18 and now one of my daughters is in the same path. She has been there for four years.

Chad Sands: Over a decade journey, but you reached black belt. What can you share about what you’ve learned from Taekwondo and how you’ve applied that into the courtroom or as a trial lawyer? Is there any crossovers?

Verónica N. Vázquez: The one thing I told you about losing, there are people that lose and they quit. So I’m not a quitter because I learned that you need to keep going. The other thing is the parallel between training and preparing your arguments and preparing your case. So I realized the better I train, the better I was performing. Now the better I prepare and I prepare like the best that I can for everything because of that. Things in a case can happen, but if you prepare, is so low chance that that’s going to happen. And that’s something I learned from being a fighter, you need to train and the more you train, the better it’s going to go. You can lose, but you’re going to do a hell of a performance. And I think it’s the same as being a trial lawyer.

Chad Sands: Not many people can say that they’ve been kicked in the face and gotten up and came back to kick ass in the next fight.

Verónica N. Vázquez: Happened to me. My feet got chopped and bones fractured. All of that. Was a very good experience. Made me very strong.

Chad Sands: I can imagine. So I’d love to hear about a case that had a significant impact on you. Could you share a story?

Verónica N. Vázquez: The case that has been more impactful for me is the PFAS. I have been working with the PFAS for five years and I have been in many positions in the MDL. It’s a very big case, it’s very important. We are helping hundreds, thousands of communities to get their water clean.

Chad Sands: Can you real quick, just at a high level, explain in a quick summary, which I know is complex to do if you’ve been working on a case like this for five years, but the history of it and what it is?

Verónica N. Vázquez: AFFF MDL is a multi-district litigation that’s been seen in the South Carolina District Court. It involves complaints and lawsuits against different manufacturing companies such as 3M, DuPont, Tyco, BASF. These companies manufacture a chemical that’s called…

PFAS is the short name and there are many many PFAS but the most known are PFOS and PFOA. So when these companies manufactured this chemical, they early on realized those chemicals do not degrade in the environment. They move very quickly into the ground and the drinking water supplies. When people were exposed to it, they were developing cancers and other injuries. So they knew.

and they didn’t say nothing and they continued to manufacture these chemicals. It was widely used by air force bases, military places, fire training facilities because it’s a component of aqua foam, the foam that firefighters use to put out fires. So it has been widespread all across the world and across the US and it contaminated drinking water and they are persistent. So an AFFF that was used in the 70s and in the 80s is still moving right now as we talk into the ground and groundwater and the drinking water of American citizens.

Chad Sands: So these companies were creating these chemicals that were mainly used in firefighting foams, it sounds like, and used not only in the United States, but across the world. That’s correct. And they had known about this liability and the bad stuff these chemicals were doing, but they kept manufacturing it until what? Finally, somebody slapped a lawsuit on their front door?

Verónica N. Vázquez: Until people were looking into it around 2000, yes. And they continued to manufacture the chemical, but they began to search for other ways to manufacture the chemicals with what is called chemical chain that is more biodegradable, but I don’t think we’re dead yet there right now.

Chad Sands: How did you kind of get pulled in?

Verónica N. Vázquez: So the MDL actually started around five or six years ago. What we had were individual lawsuits across the US. So when more people began to file lawsuits all across the US, they were consolidated into this MDL because there were too many and it was a very big problem. So the moment I was hired by the firm, I began to work with the MDL on a lower level. So I began to do discovery, review, research, editing briefs, talking to clients, doing a lot of research on how clients were impacted, how the chemicals got there, what type of tests they had at their hands to check if they had the PFAS convinced them that.

This is a problem and they have a problem and we’re here to help but you need to do the research, the testing and everything. So it was a process. I will say I began doing junior lawyer work. It is great because I learned so much.

Right now I’m handling my own cases in other type of litigation. The MDL has gotten down since we settled with 3M and DuPont and other companies. So I’m working with other PFAS cases. For example, I’m leading a case in New Hampshire against a company named San Gobain. And I’m leading another case in Delaware PFAS related against other companies. It has been a process for me, a learning process. I think.

I had so much knowledge about this. Like I said, discipline, work ethic has been very important and this case changed my life. I’m so grateful to be able to help because if I have 100 clients, 200 clients that are public water systems, those public water systems are serving thousands of people. So in reality, I feel like I’m helping thousands and thousands of people in the U.S. to have clean water.

Chad Sands: When did the big MDL settle then?

Verónica N. Vázquez: We settled with Triem and DuPont on 2023, 2022–2023. These are historic settlements. We settled with Triem for $12 billion for drinking water only and $1 billion with DuPont.

Chad Sands: And they’re promising to compensate all of these victims who were drinking the water and got exposed.

Verónica N. Vázquez: They are compensating public water systems to be able to filter the chemicals out of their water.

Chad Sands: Okay, so they’re going to fix the water problem. Yes. Are they also going to compensate families who lost one?

Verónica N. Vázquez: So that’s another part that’s still being litigated in the MDL. So that’s the personal injury branch of the case. I don’t work with that branch in the MDL. I have colleagues, our friend, thus, Andrew Kroner, Nicolas Mendicino are two of our attorneys here. Andrew is the partner and Nick is the attorney. So they are working on the personal injury branch of the case. I work mainly with the scientific stuff.

At first, the research of the problem in the US and then the legal work with clients of public water systems.

Chad Sands: But it sounds like then there was other companies that were using the chemical. Yes. And that now you’re bringing litigation against those smaller companies. I guess did 3M or DuPont, did they let those other companies know about the chemical or did they know themselves and still keep it?

Verónica N. Vázquez: They all knew this is a very, it’s a big industry, but it’s a small people world. So these other companies, they are small players. In reality, they didn’t produce as much as 3M and DuPont. And we did settle with two of them, it’s Daico and BASF. And we’re still in litigation with around 12 other manufacturing companies. That process didn’t come easy. We’re talking that to get there, we, and when I say we, it’s a big team. Many law firms, myself… I’m just a small part of this. But all of that work, we review millions of pages that these companies produce. We review 200 depositions and all of that evidence that was gathered put us in a position to negotiate and settle with them. When they realize, ⁓ they got me, I need to sit down and need to settle because they got me.

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Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

Verónica N. Vázquez: I want to focus on the challenges I’ve encountered while providing legal representation to communities across the U.S. as a woman and as an Hispanic attorney. People seem hesitant or doubtful about my capabilities because they didn’t trust. There’s too many fraud out there and hearing someone asking about sensitive information with my accent was a real challenge. Yet it was through these challenges that I discovered my real purpose and very fulfilling career. One of the stories that defines my path is when I first began representing Public Water Systems, I quickly realized that each client had unique circumstances. They were very scientific and that required deep understanding of their needs, their resources, and even the politics around the area.

I dedicated countless of hours to study their cases, research their circumstances, their structure, how the contaminants were in their systems. I immersed myself into the specific of every situation one by one. I was able to build very, very good relationship with my clients and those relationships were founded on trust. I think that through discipline and hard work, I learned that success in law, it’s not only about knowledge, but it’s about the genuine connections you make with the clients. By actively listening and demonstrating my commitment to their cause and really, really caring about the issues, like I said, I earned the trust of hundreds of clients. not just as their attorney, but as an advocate who truly cared. This journey for me has been transformative and I hope that others can know that hard work, empathy, and humanity is always going to take you into a very good place.

Chad Sands: That was trial lawyer, Veronica Vázquez. Thanks for sharing your stories. To learn more about Veronica and her firm, visit their website, www.napolilaw.com. All right, I’m Chad Sands. See you next time.

Narrator: You’ve been listening to “Celebrating Justice” presented by CloudLex and the Trial Lawyers Journal. Remember, the stories don’t end here. Visit www.triallawyersjournal.com to become part of our community and keep the conversation going. And for a deeper dive into the tools that empower personal injury law firms, visit www.cloudlex.com/tlj to learn more.